I am watching a documentary “Blues Oddysee” with Bill Wyman, not that I sit besides Bill Wyman watching it, but he is one of the key persons that gets interviewed. Bill Wyman, bass player of “the greatest Rock n Roll band on earth”, the Rolling Stones. For the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry was their most important inspiration, they wanted to be like him. Bill Wyman has a lot of knowledge of the origins of the blues. Some one said about Chuck Berry’s songs: “They are little vignets of his life”, descriptions of what happened to him and those are the kinds of songs the Rolling Stones also tried to make.

This Odyssee of the blues starts during slavery, in the Mississipi delta, where the slaved people had to find a way to cope with their misery. Bill Wyman talks about his attraction to that music: “In whatever mood your in, when you listen to the blues, you get to feel good. It always makes you feel good.” (I have to check if that is the exact quote of what he said)

The blues travels to a lot of places and an Odyssee of the Blues promises rare footage and interesting storytelling.

POND ISLAND–The living legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in St. Maarten, the wider Caribbean and Africa, as well as the prevalence of racism or the pretence that such does not exist were the common threads of the Eurotast Symposium themed “Reclaiming African Identity from Africa to the Americas” held at University of St. Martin on Friday.

Resident archaeologist Jay Haviser firmly pushed the door open on how race and self-identity played active roles in St. Maarten society in the past and still play today by profiling the lives, accomplishments and legacy of four St. Maarteners. Two were of a “white” background – Claude Wathey and Charles Vlaun – and two were “black” – Lionel B. Scot and José Lake Sr. Scot and Lake Sr. both had “clear pride” in their identities as St. Maarteners and their African ancestry. However, they provide examples of different approaches to dealing with the social contexts on the island in their time.

Scot used “a strategy to gain favour among leaders in the ‘white’ community” and “he advanced in both business and political goals, often as the only representative African- descendant, resulting from his successful adaptations,” Haviser pointed out.

Lake Sr.’s strategy was “to fight the established ‘white’ authority, gaining passionate, yet less public, support f the ‘black’ community, resulting in devastation of his business and hindrance of his political goals.”

Both approaches have had long-term positive impacts for African-descendants, yet the Scot strategy produced more successful short-term results, thus becoming the more prevalent role model, Haviser said.

Wathey and Vlaun also showed pride in their identity as St. Maarteners. They saw their societal advantages for economic position and advancement, with their strategies based more on variable ranking within the elite-status hierarchy. “Wathey used his inherited elite position to further his economic and political goals, as a form of continuity of 19th century social structure, and even though he and Vlaun were early political allies, clear competition was always evident between them, as Vlaun posed a threat to his economic advantage,” Haviser said.

“While Vlaun was the underdog from the isolated white Simpson Bay group, seeing his racial context’s advantage, yet having minimal elite status, this hindered development of both his business and political goals, yet till kept him ahead of most competing African-descendants.” These were not so much differing social strategies as much as different starting positions for economic advantage, Wathey clearly being more successful in the long term.

Haviser described the symposium as a starting point to “genuine open discussions” about “the emotional issues” of slavery and race. “We need to shake the tree and discuss issues that are painful.” Expounding on the role of public archaeology, he said the study of the past had evolved from “where the sites are” to the creation of awareness about “the journey to long-forgotten past,” with the aim of inspiring more exploration into cultural heritage.

Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams added her voice to the discussion about identity when she declared the symposium open in the presence of Governor Eugene Holiday. She said the generalisation and use of the term “St. Maartener” would continue to spur controversy and fuel a much-needed discussion in the community. This is a part of the building of the St. Maarten nation beyond its political and physical boundaries, she added.

Like Haviser, Dr. Atwell Cain of the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Knowledge in The Netherlands was very candid about the role race plays, especially in European Dutch society. He plainly said the Dutch society did not regard racism as real and people were content to believe that theirs was “the only country where racism doesn’t exist. The Dutch society also sees slavery as “something that happened outside of The Netherlands,” he said.

The Dutch are “not free to forget slavery,” Cain said as he spoke about “Slavery and Memory in The Netherlands: Who needs to commemorate.”

In Caribbean societies, the “whiteness” of one’s skin still determines “who’s in and who’s out.” Everyone will admit to being “halfeverything but half-black,” Cain said.

Eurotast head Professor Tom Gilbert of University of Copenhagen said St. Maarten was important to the study of the impact of slavery, as was the rest of the Caribbean region. He highlighted the role of Eurotast in forging connections and links with past via science and living history.

Giving the “Archaeological Perspectives on Slavery in Africa” lecture, Professor Kodzo Gavua of University of Ghana pointed out that while many saw the time of enslavement as over, there was the scourge of modernday slavery, a bondage left over from the days when people were ferreted away from Africa and the instilling of the idea that nothing African is good. He said there needed to be more self-pride and until Africans learned to see themselves as producers, not only consumers of outside products and ideas, this “new slavery” could not be abolished.

St. Eustatius Centre for Archaeological Research SECAR archaeologist Ruud Stelten spoke about the work in St. Eustatius on a recently unearthed slave village and plans for observance of the 150th anniversary of the aboliton of slavery in the Dutch Caribbean on July 1. He noted that slaves in St. Eustatius appeared to have had a bit more freedom than those on other islands because of Statia’s small size.

The symposium was hosted by St. Maarten Archaeological Centre Simarc in cooperation with Leiden University. The gathering brought together numerous doctoral candidates and Eurotast fellows in the areas of biology, mathematics and history studies, with professors and “first voices” of community and cultural activists from the St. Maarten/St. Martin community. The two-day symposium, which ends today, Saturday, sought to explore and question the ways archaeology has contributed to academic and public understanding of slavery in the Atlantic world, both as an institution and as a lived experience for people of African descent.

Come and meet local author, Lois Choksy, writing as Blair McDowell www.blairmcdowell.com. Many of you know that Mrs Choksy has had a house on Statia for the past 40 years. Her recent novel “Delighting In Your Company” is a paranormal romance set on Statia and based on the local lore of the ghost of Whitewall.

Book Signing at Mazinga on the Bay on Saturday, February 2nd from 2 to 5pm

POND ISLAND–EUROTAST, a Marie Curie Initial Training Network with the primary objective of training a new generation of researchers, will hold a symposium on slavery for its fellows in St. Maarten on February 8-9 at the University of St. Martin. A public day on February 8 starting at 9:00am has been organised to allow residents to learn more about studies related to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Prior to the symposium, themed Archaeology of Slavery: Reclaiming African identity from Africa to the Americas, archaeological fieldwork will be carried out on St. Eustatius.

A Danish film crew will document the events of the EUROTAST programme.

St. Maarten Archaeological Centre SIMARC in cooperation with Leiden University, will host the symposium while St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research SECAR and the university will host the fieldwork.

The EUROTAST training initiative in St. Eustatius is the second of its kind focussing on the archaeology of slavery and ethically-engaged practice. This initiative will begin with a seven-day course in practical fieldwork and conclude with the twoday symposium on the same topics with papers given by prominent scholars working on the subject.

The fieldwork for the EUROTAST fellows will be at an enslaved African village site associated with an 18 th century sugar plantation. The fieldwork will be supervised by SECAR archaeologist Ruud Stelten and Professors Corinne Hofman and Menno Hoogland from Leiden University.

This training course will introduce the fellows to basic field techniques and provide a unique opportunity to work on an archaeological site linked to colonial slavery in the Caribbean. The two-day symposium seeks to explore and question the ways archaeology has contributed to academic and public understanding of slavery in the Atlantic world both as an institution and as a lived experience for people of African descent.

Voices from the St. Maarten cultural community have been invited to reflect more widely on the transatlantic slave trade and its representation in a local context. The programme will also include a roundtable discussion on ethics in archaeology and a public lecture on symposium themes given by Professor Theresa Singleton from Syracuse University.

A selection of symposium papers will be edited and compiled for a special issue of the Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage.

Several eminent professors are slated to make presentations at the symposium including Professor Kodzo Gavua of University of Ghana, Professor Tom Gilbert of University of Copenhagen, Dr. Artwell Cain of the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Knowledge, Professor Theresa Singleton of Syracuse University, Dr. Patrice Courtaud of University of Bordeaux, and resident archaeologist Dr. Jay Haviser among others.

(From DH 31-12-12) ST. EUSTATIUS–For more than 75 years and until this day Killy Killy Band’s string music is enlivening celebrations of all kinds in St. Eustatius. In its early days, the band was known as then Hippie Boys, when legendary musicians such as the late Dip ”Styler” Redan and Ishmael “Ishie“ Arnaud played the fife and Edward ”Buck” Duinkerk played the steel pan, going from door to door during the holidays, serenading the community. These three were immortalized by a bronze statue commissioned by Dr. Paul Schats, who used to play along with the band during the holidays. The statue was placed in the yard of the Government Guesthouse. Since about ten years, the band goes by the name of Killy Killy Band, of which women singers are now also members. Walton “Lord Gene” Schmidt used to be the lead singer, but now other vocalists may also be heard. Jeannette Bos of The Netherlands also fell in love with the band and returns to St. Eustatius every year to play along. She even learned to play one of the traditional string instruments used in the band. The band plays for numerous festive occasions, such as weddings, church services or during the arrival of distinguished guests on the island.